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Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born in Quincy, Illinois, on 23 February 1915, the son of Paul Warfield Tibbets Sr. and his wife, Enola Gay Tibbets. When he was five years old the family moved to Davenport, Iowa, and then to Iowa's capital, Des Moines, where he was raised, and where his father became a confections wholesaler. When he was eight, his family moved to Miami, Florida, to escape from harsh midwestern winters. As a boy he was very interested in flying. One day his mother agreed to pay one dollar to get him into an airplane at the local carnival. In 1927, when he was 12 years old, he flew in a plane piloted by barnstormer Doug Davis, dropping candy bars with tiny parachutes to the crowd of people attending the races at the Hialeah Park Race Track.[1][2]

In July 1942 the 97th became the first heavy bombardment group of the Eighth Air Force to be deployed to England, where it was based at RAF Polebrook.[13] It had been hastily assembled to meet demands for an early deployment, and arrived without any training in the basics of high altitude daylight bombing. In the first weeks of August 1942, under the tutelage of Royal Air Force veterans, the group received intensive training for its first mission. The group commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cornelius W. Cousland,[14] was replaced by ColonelFrank A. Armstrong Jr., who appointed Tibbets as his deputy.[15]

Tibbets flew the lead bomber Butcher Shop[16] for the first American daylight heavy bomber mission on 17 August 1942, a shallow penetration raid against a marshalling yard in Rouen in Occupied France, with Armstrong as his co-pilot. This was not Tibbets's regular aircraft, Red Gremlin, nor his regular crew, which included bombardierThomas Ferebee and navigator Theodore Van Kirk, who later flew with him in Enola Gay.[17] On October 9, Tibbets led the first American raid of more than 100 bombers in Europe, attacking industrial targets in the French city of Lille. Poor bombing accuracy resulted in numerous civilian casualties and less damage to the rail installations than hoped, but the mission was hailed an overall success because it reached its target against heavy and constant fighter attack. Of the 108 aircraft in the raid, 33 were shot down or had to turn back due to mechanical problems.[18][19]

After Tibbets had flown 25 combat missions against targets in France,[11] the 97th Bomb Group was transferred to North Africa as part of Major General Jimmy Doolittle's Twelfth Air Force. For Tibbets, the war in North Africa introduced him to the realities of aerial warfare. He claimed that he saw the real effects of bombing civilians and the trauma of losing his brothers in arms. In January 1943, Tibbets, who had now flown 43 combat missions,[23] was assigned as the assistant for bomber operations to Colonel Lauris Norstad, Assistant Chief of Staff of Operations (A-3) of the Twelfth Air Force.[11] Tibbets had recently been given a battlefield promotion to colonel, but did not receive it, as such promotions had to be confirmed by a panel of officers. He was told that Norstad had vetoed the promotion, saying "there's only going to be one colonel in operations."[24]

Tibbets did not get along well with Norstad, or with Doolittle's chief of staff, Brigadier General Hoyt Vandenberg. In one planning meeting, Norstad wanted an all-out raid on Bizerte to be flown at 6,000 feet (1,800 m). Tibbets protested that flak would be most effective at that altitude. When challenged by Norstad, Tibbets said he would lead the mission himself at 6,000 feet if Norstad would fly as his co-pilot. Norstad backed down, and the mission was successfully flown at 20,000 feet (6,100 m).[25]

Working with the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas, Tibbets test flew the B-29, and soon accumulated more flight time in it than any other pilot. He found that without defensive armament and armor plating, the aircraft was 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) lighter, and its performance was much improved. In simulated combat engagements against a P-47 fighter at the B-29's cruising altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 m), he discovered that the B-29 had a smaller turning radius than the P-47, and could avoid it by turning away.[28][29]

When the operation was still in the development stage the leading candidates to command the group designated to drop the atomic bomb had been Armstrong and Colonel Roscoe C. Wilson, the Army Air Force project officer providing liaison support to the Manhattan Project. Although an experienced combat veteran against German targets, Armstrong was in his forties and had been severely injured in a fire in the summer of 1943, while Wilson had no combat experience and was qualified primarily by his engineering background and association with the project. Tibbets was considerably younger than both and had experience in both staff and command duties in heavy bomber combat operations, and was already an experienced B-29 pilot, thus making him an ideal candidate.[34]

Tibbets, who received promotion to colonel in January 1945,[35] brought his wife and family along with him to Wendover. He felt that allowing married men in the group to bring their families would improve morale, although it put a strain on his own marriage. To explain all the civilian engineers on base who were working on the Manhattan Project, he had to lie to his wife, telling her that the engineers were "sanitary workers." At one point Tibbets found that Lucy had co-opted a scientist to unplug a drain.[36]

On 6 March 1945, concurrent with the activation of Project Alberta, the 1st Ordnance Squadron, Special (Aviation) was activated at Wendover, again using Army Air Forces personnel on hand or already at Los Alamos. Its purpose was to provide "skilled machinists, welders and munitions workers"[37] and special equipment to the group to enable it to assemble atomic weapons at its operating base, thereby allowing the weapons to be transported more safely in their component parts. A rigorous candidate selection process was used to recruit personnel, reportedly with an 80% rejection rate. The 509th Composite Group reached full strength in May 1945.[38]

With the addition of the 1st Ordnance Squadron to its roster in March 1945, the 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom deployed to Tinian, an island in the northern Marianas within striking distance of Japan, in May and June 1945. The 320th Troop Carrier Squadron kept its base of operations at Wendover. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian all 51 civilian and military personnel of Project Alberta. Furthermore, two representatives from Washington, D.C. were present on the island:[39] the deputy director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, and Rear AdmiralWilliam R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee.[40]

The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group received movement orders and moved by rail on 26 April 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On May 6 the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while the group's materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner.[41] An advance party of the air echelon flew by C-54 to North Field, Tinian, between May 15 and 22,[42] where it was joined by the ground echelon on 29 May 1945.[43] Project Alberta's "Destination Team" also sent most of its members to Tinian to supervise the assembly, loading, and dropping of the bombs under the administrative title of 1st Technical Services Detachment, Miscellaneous War Department Group.[44][45]

General Carl Spaatz decorates Tibbets with the Distinguished Service Cross after the Hiroshima mission

On 5 August 1945, Tibbets formally named his B-29 Enola Gay after his mother.[46]Enola Gay had been personally selected by him while it was still on the assembly line at the Glenn L. Martin Company plant in Bellevue, Nebraska.[47] The regularly assigned aircraft commander, Robert A. Lewis, was unhappy to be displaced by Tibbets for this important mission, and became furious when he arrived at the aircraft on the morning of August 6 to see the aircraft he considered his painted with the now-famous nose art. Lewis would fly the mission as Tibbets's co-pilot.[46][48]

At 02:45 the next day—in accordance with the terms of Operations Order No. 35—the Enola Gay departed North Field for Hiroshima, Japan, with Tibbets at the controls. Tinian was approximately 2,000 miles (3,200 km) away from Japan, so it took six hours to reach Hiroshima. The atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was dropped over Hiroshima at 08:15 local time. Tibbets recalled that the city was covered with a tall mushroom cloud after the bomb was dropped.[49]

Tibbets was interviewed extensively by Mike Harden of the Columbus Dispatch, and profiles appeared in the newspaper on anniversaries of the first dropping of an atomic bomb. In a 1975 interview he said: "I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did ... I sleep clearly every night."[53][54] "I knew when I got the assignment," he told a reporter in 2005, "it was going to be an emotional thing. We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."[55]

Tibbets then attended the Air Command and Staff School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. On graduating in 1947 he was posted to the Directorate of Requirements at Air Force Headquarters at the Pentagon.[11] When the head of the directorate, Brigadier General Thomas S. Power, was posted to London as air attaché, he was replaced by Brigadier General Carl Brandt. Brandt appointed Tibbets as director of Directorate of Requirements's Strategic Air Division, which was responsible for drawing up requirements for future bombers. Tibbets was convinced that the bombers of the future would be jet aircraft and thus became involved in the Boeing B-47 Stratojet program.[59] He subsequently served as B-47 project officer at Boeing in Wichita from July 1950 until February 1952. He then became commander of the Proof Test Division at Eglin Air Force Base in Valparaiso, Florida, where flight testing of the B-47 was conducted.[11]

Tibbets returned to Maxwell Air Force Base, where he attended the Air War College. After he graduated in June 1955, he became Director of War Plans at the Allied Air Forces in Central Europe Headquarters at Fontainebleau, France.[11] He left Lucy and his sons behind in Alabama,[60] and he and Lucy divorced that year.[61] During his posting to France, he met a French divorcee named Andrea Quattrehomme, who became his second wife. He returned to the United States in February 1956 to command the 308th Bombardment Wing at Hunter Air Force Base, Georgia, and married her in the base chapel on 4 May 1956.[62] They had a son, James Tibbets.[63]

In January 1958, Tibbets became commander of the 6th Air Division at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.[11] and was promoted to brigadier general in 1959.[64] This was followed by another tour of duty at the Pentagon as director of Management Analysis. In July 1962, he was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as deputy director for operations, and then, in June 1963, as deputy director for the National Military Command System.[11] In 1964, Tibbets was named military attaché in India. He spent 22 months there on this posting, which ended in June 1966.[64] He retired from the United States Air Force (USAF) on 31 August 1966.[65]

After his retirement from the Air Force, Tibbets worked for Executive Jet Aviation (EJA), an air taxi company based in Columbus, Ohio, and now called NetJets. He attempted to extend the company's operations to Europe, but was unsuccessful. He retired from the company in 1968, and returned to Miami, Florida, where he had spent part of his childhood. The banks foreclosed on EJA in 1970, and Bruce Sundlun became president. Sundlun lured Tibbets back to EJA that year. Tibbets succeeded Sundlun as president on 21 April 1976, and remained in the role until 1986. He served for a year as a consultant before his second and final retirement from EJA in 1987.[6][54][66]

The United States government apologized to Japan in 1976 after Tibbets re-enacted the bombing in a restored B-29 at an air show in Texas, complete with a mushroom cloud. He said that he had not meant for the re-enactment to have been an insult to the Japanese.[53][77] In 1995, he denounced the 50th anniversary exhibition of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution, which attempted to present the bombing in context with the destruction it caused, as a "damn big insult",[53] due to its focus on the Japanese casualties rather than the brutality of the Japanese government.[53] He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1996.[65]

Tibbets died in his Columbus, Ohio, home on 1 November 2007, at the age of 92.[53][80] He had suffered small strokes and heart failure during his final years and had been in hospice care.[6][81] He was survived by his French-born wife, Andrea,[77] and two sons from his first marriage, Paul III and Gene as well as his son, James, from his second marriage.[6][81] Tibbets had asked for no funeral nor headstone as he feared opponents of the bombing might use it as a place of protest. In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated,[82] and his ashes were scattered over the English Channel,[83] which he had flown over many times during the war.[81]

Campbell, Richard H. (2005). The Silverplate Bombers: A History and Registry of the Enola Gay and Other B-29s Configured to Carry Atomic Bombs. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN0-7864-2139-8.